Image Credit: Pamela Littkey; Diyah PeraThe announcement that Justin Bieber, the hip-swiveling Canadian teen-pop sensation who looks like a 12-year-old Hilary Swank in a windswept helmet, would be starring in his very own 3-D biopic, to be released next Valentine’s Day, occasioned shrieks of gratitude (at least, from his fans), along with more than a few chortles and eye rolls. All of that may be deserved. Bieber is now 16 years old, which sort of makes you wonder: Will the first half hour of this movie take place while he’s still in a high chair? To put it mildly, he doesn’t seem to have lived a long enough life to be telling his life story, and the list of biopics that actually star the subjects as themselves is very, very short, and not auspicious. When Muhammad Ali chose to portray himself in The Greatest, back in 1977, even that, coming from one of the most mythological self-promoters of the 20th century, seemed at the time like a rather startlingly blunt act of egotism run amok.
Nevertheless, I have to say: This is an incredibly shrewd move on Bieber’s part. 
For one thing, he’s a very talented dude, with more personality in his soaring rockin’-bird vocals, and his dance moves, than you’d find in all three Jonas Brothers mashed together. What’s truly savvy about the idea of a Justin Bieber biopic, though, as shameless and calculated an act of marketing as it may be, is that it’s just so damn…in-your-face. It’s Bieber’s way of saying: I’m here. I’m a sizzling commodity. Get used to it. And that’s what a teen idol today has to do to cut through the clutter. He, or she, must seize the focus, force the hot spotlight right onto his talent. I imagine that the Bieber movie will feature a fair amount of performance footage anyway — that the “biopic” aspect may, in fact, be just a way of dressing up a concert film. For the sheer audacity of the announcement, though, I’d have to say that Bieber and his army of handlers have won the week.
The week’s big loser, of course, is Zac Efron, who I treated rather harshly — and I stand by it — in my review of the saccharine, inert dud Charlie St. Cloud. Since I’ve liked Efron, a lot, in all three of the High School Musical films, there’s a reason I beat up on him here. READ FULL STORY »
